The Tate-LaBianca Homicide Research Blog

Venus Writes:
Lynyrd, in honor of Jay Sebring's birthday today (October 10), I'm going to do a few threads related to him.  Here's one about my visit to his grave a few years ago.

A few years ago, a friend and I decided to travel to Detroit to pay our respects to Jay. 
We went around the time of his birthday, but not on the actual day.  We drove 6 hours to get there.  The weird thing was that we couldn't find the street the cemetery was located on, we could find surrounding streets, but kept missing that one. 
Finally, after driving back and forth and up and down the area, we saw the sign for the cemetery.  This is the view as we drove past it.

    Then, you drive over this lovely lake on the cemetery grounds.

As you can see, the cemetery is full of trees.  We heard lots of birds in them and there were also lots of geese walking around.

 

It wasn't very easy to find the section his grave was in.  The area was quite large so we split up to find it.  We didn't want to ask where it was because who knows how a worker would react?  "Oh no, more of those nuts!"  So, we looked on our own. 

 

We were close enough that we could talk but far enough apart that we could look at several graves.  It was fall so there were lots of leaves all over the place.  They covered the graves so we had to look carefully.  Neither of us found his.  We met and decided to keep looking before we asked for assistance. 

 

For some reason, something told me to look where she'd been.  As I started walking there, she said, "I've already looked there."  I said, "I know...." but kept going.  After a while, the whole situation started to seem a bit funny (not in a haha way) so I stopped. 

 

I said (out loud), "Ok, Jay, we didn't come this far only to play hide and seek with you, where are you?" and, seriously, I felt this rustling by my right ankle (not scary).  I looked and these leaves were blowing around my foot (which was on a marker but I didn't realize it)  As I was wondering why these leaves were blowing (it wasn't windy) I noticed that letters were being uncovered, they said "SON" and I  was just stunned!  I couldn't even say anything but I got her attention and she came running and, as we were watching, other letters started showing up.  It was Jay's grave marker that I'd been standing on.  We looked at each other in shock and she said, "I guess he wanted you to find him." 

 

I wish we'd taken photos as the leaves were blowing, but we didn't.  Here are a few photos of his marker with the arrangement that we brought to pay our respects.

We stayed for a while to say a prayer.  It was a very moving experience and made me cry.  No matterhow much you know that these were real people, you don't fully realize it until you're standing by a grave.  We talked about how much his loved ones must miss him.
  
I've never been back, but plan to return.  I rarely hear from the person I went with.  I took some photos too, but have never uploaded them.  One of my photos has this weird image on it.  She said that it's ghostly.  Maybe.  I have no idea.
  
All I can say is that if you have a chance to pay your respects, please do so.  I'd definitely visit Jay's grave again.  If someone is ever in the area, let me know.
  
I hope you enjoyed my story and the photos.
  
Rest in peace, Jay.
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Here's a close-up of his grave marker and the note my friend left.

(I don't remember what she wrote, unfortunately)

A view showing the supposed ghostly… image swirl in left corner, Jay's grave is where the red flowers are--sort of in the center, he's buried under that large tree in the center.